


A Chance to Hold On

by scribblemoose



Series: Merlin Missing Scenes Fics [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-19
Updated: 2010-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-08 22:26:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemoose/pseuds/scribblemoose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin, growing up.</p><p>Spoilers S1 & S2</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Chance to Hold On

**Author's Note:**

> The title, 'A Chance to Hold On' comes from the song 'You're All I Have' by Snow Patrol, which makes a pretty good soundtrack to the story, as it happens.

Winters were always hard, but the winter Hunith carried Merlin was the hardest she could remember.

She held fond memories of the previous winter: of spending the long nights listening to stories in the longhouse; short days making the best of the light to sew and weave; walking the fields with her friends, all of them still girls, full of hope and romantic stories; warm cider and spiced apple at the midwinter feast. It snowed prettily but otherwise the weather was kinder than usual, and spring came early.

With spring came war and death, and in the midst of it all, a man.

By summer there was a bulge in her belly, the kicking under her ribs, and grief and rage and solid resolution that this would not change her.

And then came the snow, thick as fog, long nights shivering around a fire that never reached her bones. Heavy and full and afraid, Hunith felt more alone than she ever had in all her twenty-one years. If it hadn't been for the life inside her, she would have followed. She'd heard he'd died; that Cendred's men had found him in the hills to the north and cut him down. She didn't know if it was true, but she knew it might as well be.

The day the frost gave way to the first, sweet primrose in the village, Merlin was born, and Hunith let go of her grief and rage forever. He came into the world with a shock of black hair and Hunith's blue eyes. From the moment he first he saw her, he looked on her with his father's gentle gaze. And more than anything ever in the whole of the world, Hunith loved him.

*

She'd always known that Merlin was magic. Sometimes, long before he was born, she'd felt it when he moved inside her, a pulse of more than blood, a beat like dragons' wings. The first time she saw the flash of gold in his eyes he was no more than six weeks old. There was nothing else, no action, just a fleeting expression of who he was, like his precious smiles and giggles and his rare tears - crying only to be held, Merlin, never sad-hungry for anything else but arms around him, warm body close. When Hunith picked him up his little fist would curl around her thumb and he'd look up and laugh at her with pure delight, as if it was the most brilliant thing in the world just to be there with her.

Merlin thrived, and Hunith with him.

At his first winter festival Merlin took his first, shaky steps. He'd been startlingly mobile for a while, crawling proficiently on sturdy hands-and-knees, often into trouble. The older mothers told her he crawled so well he'd be late to walk, but Hunith wasn't so sure. Nothing was ever _enough_ for Merlin. No sooner would he find a thing, learn a thing, conquer a thing, than he'd be putting it aside to start looking for the next.

So when she saw him at the festival, standing by the woodpile in the longhouse, little fingers digging into the rough bark of a log for balance, staring fixedly at the apple she was cutting for him, she knew what was about to happen.

Merlin looked up at her, laughed, took two steps, the log forgotten -

\- and fell flat on his face.

But as always, he didn't let that stop him.

*

A few weeks later, Merlin nearly set fire to the house.

She'd expected Merlin's magic to manifest, wondered when it would happen, and how. She'd started to read about magic, grateful for the dangerous books Gaius had smuggled out of Camelot for her, but there was little in them about how to raise a warlock. Apart from the occasional tinge of gold in his eyes he was just like any other little boy: determined, fearless, full of energy and smiles.

Until one day, when Hunith was sitting by the fire, preparing vegetables for stew. She kept the fire low; she was short of wood and the house was warm enough: the frosts hadn't settled in and they were blessed with warm clothes and thick woollen blankets. However, Merlin's opinion differed. He'd grown as a summer baby, used to wearing little more than linen shifts, tilting his face happily to the sun. He was less than impressed with winter, and he hated being constricted by blankets or hats or extra layers.

He staggered over to the hearth, still not quite steady on his legs, and stared at the fire, hard.

The flames shot up in a blinding flash; Hunith threw herself on him, instinctively protecting his fragile little body with hers. The fire died back down as fast as it had flared; in a second it was out completely, the wood completely consumed in that one, brilliant flash. No harm done, thank the gods.

Merlin stared in horror at what he'd done and started, abruptly, to cry. Hunith held him close and kissed his hair, rocked him back and forth until his sobs turned to sad little stutters of breath and snot. She wiped his face and brushed his nose with hers and whispered, "It's alright, Merlin. It's alright."

The look he gave her in return through blue, wet eyes, was simply, _I'm sorry._

Hunith hugged him tight, choked down the fear, and loved him.

*

A few weeks later, Merlin found a (somewhat) safer outlet for his magic.

He started to move things.

They'd reached a compromise on the clothing issue: Hunith kept the fire a little hotter, and Merlin allowed a somewhat thicker overtunic and a little scarf around his neck, just a left over scrap that covered his chest and throat a little. (Sometimes she'd find him sleeping with the corner of the thing folded up in his hand, rubbing it softly along the length of his nose for comfort.) Merlin would play happily at Hunith's side, always curious, always investigating the detail of things, whether it was a ball of yarn or the texture of a potato peeling or the sound of a spoon bashed firmly against a table leg. Matthew had made him a set of little wooden blocks that he loved; he'd balance them one on top of the other into a precarious pile, only to knock them flat again, at which point he'd squeal in delight and clap his little hands and look to Hunith for approval.

One day, the tower scattered further than Merlin could reach to put it back together again. Two blocks were cast far away from the warmth of hearth in the cool end of the room, resting under a chair.

Hunith watched as Merlin glared at the blocks, making the little huffy, snorty sort of noise that came with his frustration.

Then his gaze softened; his body stilled. He reached out his hand, fingers spread wide.

His eyes flared.

The chair shattered into a million pieces.

*

As with all things, Merlin learned the hard way. Hunith steered him as patiently as she could, but she didn't understand his magic any more than he did - probably considerably _less_ than he did - and this was something she really couldn't go to the older mothers about. All she could do was watch, quietly, without censure, clear up messes and comfort him when things went wrong.

All in all, it wasn't so different to other aspects of looking after a toddler. Exhausting, terrifying and by far and away the most rewarding thing Hunith had ever done.

And bit by bit, Merlin tamed his power.

One afternoon Hunith woke from a doze to find Merlin sitting (by the fire, as always) with his hands clasped in his lap in a curiously adult gesture. He had the hugest grin on his face, spreading from ear to ear.

She followed his gaze up, and up, to the highest shelf, the one above the door where she kept things that she didn't want Merlin to touch.

There, stacked neatly in little piles of three, were Merlin's wooden blocks.

She knew she hadn't put them there.

"Merlin?" she said, astonished.

Merlin looked up at her, suddenly uncertain, lower lip wobbling a bit.

"You moved those up there?"

Merlin nodded, and she must have calmed his fear with a look because he was grinning again, holding out his arms to her.

She swept him up and hugged him tight, and all but burst with pride.

It was only later that she realised that Merlin being able to reach high shelves a little ahead of schedule could have its problems.

*

Merlin's first word, which came three weeks after his first birthday, was 'Mother'.

His second word was 'sorry'.

He used both of them a lot from then on. But always with a winning smile.

*

It soon became clear that Gaius's books were worse than useless when it came to dealing with Merlin and his magic. It was far too risky to take Merlin to see Gaius while he breathed magic out of every pore, and Gaius didn't travel, tied to the King as he was. In this, as in all things, they'd just have to muddle through on their own.

Merlin was an exception, that much was clear. According to both Gaius's tomes and the understanding she'd grown up with, magic developed slowly over the course of childhood, only noticeable on the brink of adulthood.

By the time Merlin was five, he could move an object with a single glance; by ten he could still time down to a single moment. He didn't have to summon anything or incant anything; it was simply part of who he was. As was his sharp intelligence and his quick wits, and his kind, generous heart. All of which combined to make a soul so precious and so vulnerable that Hunith feared for him every time he left the house. She tried to explain about things like fear and jealousy and how people didn't understand, but of course he was Merlin, and took no notice.

One day, when he'd been playing with the other children in the village for an hour or so, she heard his footsteps pounding along the hard earth outside the house. He slammed through the door and flung himself on the bed in a storm of tears. When she went to comfort him he clung to her, curled himself around her like a vine, all gangly limbs and clutching fingers, until she'd soothed him enough that he could talk.

"They say I'm a monster," he whispered, voice thick with tears. "They say I was born wrong, because I haven't got a father."

Hunith squeezed her eyes tight shut, grateful that his head was buried in her neck so he couldn't see her face. She said, as calmly, strongly as she could, "Do you think that, Merlin?"

Merlin shook his head, his nose scrubbing across her shoulder.

"Well, neither do I," she said. "And that's all that matters. You're unique, Merlin. In a _good_ way. You've been given these gifts because you're special. Don't ever forget that."

He wrapped his arms around her middle, and squeezed. "Love you," he mumbled.

"I love you too," she said.

*

Hunith had taught Merlin to read when he was four, as soon as he showed an interest. He'd always loved stories, his imagination vivid and wild enough to break the limits of what he knew. They pored over story books together, and when he'd exhausted her meagre supply she wrote him new ones on little scraps of parchment. After a while they'd write them together, taking turns at crafting beginnings and middles and always fighting fiercely for the right to make the end. (Merlin's endings were always, always happy.)

There were always dragons in his stories. Merlin asked her endless questions about how they breathed and where the fire came from, and were they magic, did they really fly, how big, were they good, were some of them good, were any?

Not so different from any other little boy, really, except....

Hunith pushed that knowledge down deep where it couldn't hurt him. His magic was enough.

There were only so many secrets a boy could be expected to bear, after all.

*

One day Hunith stood by Merlin at the table where they were making bread, and realised that she had to look up, just a little, to meet his eye.

"You're getting so tall," she said, suddenly seeing an almost-man where the boy had used to be.

"I don't think so," said Merlin, eyes twinkling. "You must be getting shorter."

She smacked him on the shoulder with a floury hand, just to hear him laugh.

*

There came a day when Merlin had to duck a little to get through the door; when he didn't tell Hunith everything that happened to him, but the rest of the village thought they knew; when his magic all but burst from him at his slightest wish, but the regret came so much harder.

All the things Hunith loved most about her son came together to form Merlin as a man. He saw injustice all around him and like any earnest, kind young man, he wanted to fix it. The only difference was that unlike most young people, Merlin _could_. But no-one, not even Hunith, would let him.

For six long months, from the last leaf-fall to the first blade of fresh green grass, Merlin railed against everything; an impossible ball of fury that refused to be soothed, a hurt that refused to be comforted. He spent a lot of time out in the forest, despite the cold. He spent a lot of time with Will, whom Hunith suspected wasn't the best giver of advice or keeper of secrets. It became clear that Ealdor wouldn't stay safe for Merlin much longer.

Hunith wrote to Gaius with a heavy heart, and handed him the most precious thing she'd ever known.

*

The day that Merlin left Ealdor was bright and golden, fully spring. When he hugged her goodbye he held her too long; when he walked away he walked too slowly.

She ducked back inside the house before he'd fully gone from view; that way she could fool herself he was still there after all.

There was one of Merlin's old wooden blocks, dark wood moulded by years of play and magic to soft edges, sitting in the middle of the table. She picked it up and found a letter underneath it in Merlin's wild, expressive hand. She'd read that later, when she could cry in peace.

For now she turned the block in her hand, and as she did so, one side caught the sunlight streaming through the window.

Hunith caught her breath. Her heart ached. And then, as if Merlin were still right there beside her, she couldn't help but laugh.

Etched in the wood in sparkling gold and magic, was, of course, a dragon.

_~fin~_


End file.
